Simply explained:
Apple’s string of success is effectively impossible. Yet it happened. They are a black swan.
Look at Taleb’s criteria:
- It is an outlier — check
- It carries an extreme impact — check
- It is explained after the fact — in the case of Apple, the explanation is Steve Jobs. He was a genius, and now he is gone
And so, AAPL continues its downward descent; it was great to ride it on the upside, but now that Apple is a normal company, the probability of another hit are so remote, it’s best to assume it simply won’t happen.
This is the disconnect many of us in the blogosphere have with Wall Street. We actually believe that design matters, that taste is objective, and that culture can be developed. And, by definition, none of these can be measured or quantified — or modeled.
AB's Reflections 